with sake-mild rice wine-songs, and end
less odori, traditional dances. With little suc
cess, Mrs. Nishino tried to teach Jim and
me an odori symbolizing the harvest, until
her husband cheerfully observed, "Totemo
mikomi ga nai desu!-It's absolutely hope
less! We'll never get the crop in!"
It was a time of small personal jokes. I
discovered that Mr. Nishino was known
affectionately among his neighbors as Imo
Sensei (sweet-potato professor) for his knowl
edge and love of farming. When Obasan
revealed my wariness of the bath, I was
promptly christened Goemon, the robber who
came to a steaming end. Since Jim Stan
field's first name matches that of Japan's
legendary first sovereign-Jimmu Tenno-he
became Tennosan (honorable emperor). I was
pleased to see our tateami fisherman and his
wife join in the merriment; a painful chapter
in our visit had obviously been closed.
Long after Futagami is generally asleep,
the party ended, and we walked back along
the darkened waterfront. Skirting the quay
with its shadowy ranks of boats, I recalled
the lines of a poem written about Futagami
Jima by its school principal, Tokui Yoshiharu,
and sung earlier that evening:
Lower the rush curtains of the houses
Overlooking the calm sea.
Moor the fishing boats
So they can dream the night's dreams.
EARLY NEXT MORNING we left Futa
gami by the daily supply boat from Mat
suyama. Despite a late evening the night
before, many of our friends were already at
sea, dark specks far out on the horizon. To
our surprise more than 50 villagers came to
see us off, including the entire kindergarten
class. Someone had produced a giant package
of streamers to be stretched between ship and
shore, and there were enough mikan gifts to
sink a fishing boat.
Amid a confusion of good-byes, we stepped
aboard and watched the streamers part one
by one as we pulled away from the pier. I
caught a glimpse of Mr. Nishino, who had
forsaken his beloved fields for the occasion,
and of our young friend Shinji Nakata, pan
tomiming a last game of jan ken pon.
And finally there was Obasan, standing
on a corner of the pier, waving an apron
with all the energy of a signalman. Cupping
my hands, I called to her, "We'll be back,
Obasan-keep the bath water hot."
I'm confident she will.
]
Enthralled with make-believe, wide-eyed
students in Futagami's small kindergarten
sit quietly at story hour. As more and more
of its young people depart, Futagami be
comes, in the words of one villager, "an aging
star-still shining, but growing smaller."
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